FIPS Validation

NSS FIPS 140 validation

Softoken is a component of NSS, and has a separate version number. The most recent FIPS validated Softoken is 3.12.4 and is in NSS 3.12.4 and NSS 3.12.5 and NSS 3.12.6. Binaries are available | here.

NSS softoken has completed FIPS 140 validation four times: 1997, 1999, 2002, 2007 and 2009. View | NSS FIPS validation history here. View the FIPS2009 validation here.

This page documents our current NSS FIPS 140 validation.

Updates

April 2010 NSS Softoken has finished its validation NSS Certs

Platforms for 2011

• Level 1
  • RHEL 6 x86 32 bit (no AES-NI)
  • RHEL 6 x86 64 bit

Algorithms

Plan is to validate all FIPS-approved algorithms that NSS implements and NIST has tests for. There are eight such algorithms.

Algorithms	Key Size	Modes	Certificates
TripleDES	KO 1,2,3 (56,112,168)	TECB(e/d; KO 1,2,3) TCBC(e/d; KO 1,2,3)	Pending]
AES	128/192/256	ECB(e/d; 128,192,256) CBC(e/d; 128,192,256)	Pending
SHS (including all variants: SHA-1, SHA-256, SHA-384, and SHA-512) SHS	SHA-1 (BYTE-only) SHA-256 (BYTE-only) SHA-384 (BYTE-only) SHA-512 (BYTE-only)	N/A	Pending
HMAC	HMAC-SHA1, HMAC-SHA256, HMAC-SHA384, HMAC-SHA512	KeySize < BlockSize, KeySize = BlockSize, KeySize > BlockSize	Pending
DRBG	N/A	Hash_DRBG of NIST SP 800-90	Pending
DSA	512-1024	PQG(gen)MOD(1024); PQG(ver)MOD(1024); KEYGEN(Y)MOD(1024); SIG(gen)MOD(1024); SIG(ver)MOD(1024);	Pending
RSA	1024-8192	ALG[RSASSA-PKCS1_V1_5]; SIG(gen); SIG(ver);	Pending
ECDSA (Extended ECC)	163-571	PKG: CURVES( ALL-P ALL-K ALL-B ); PKV: CURVES( ALL-P ALL-K ALL-B ); SIG(gen): CURVES( ALL-P ALL-K ALL-B ); SIG(ver): CURVES( ALL-P ALL-K ALL-B );	Not In 2011 Validation
ECDSA (Basic ECC)	256-521	PKG: CURVES( ALL-P P-256 P-384 P-521 ); PKV: CURVES( ALL-P P-256 P-384 P-521 ); SIG(gen): CURVES( ALL-P P-256 P-384 P-521 ); SIG(ver): CURVES( P-256 P-384 P-521 );	Not In 2011 Validation

Dependant Bugs

Bug	Description	Completed

Testing Lab

SAIC

FIPS 140 Information

NIST Cryptographic Module Validation Program

NIST Crypto Toolkit

NSS FIPS 140-2 Validation Docs

NSS FIPS 140-2 Validation Docs

FIPS 140-2 Derived Test Requirements (DTR)

FIPS 140-2 Derived Test Requirements (DTR)

Vendor Information

NSS is actively supported and maintained by the following corporations:

Sun Microsystems, Inc.: http://www.sun.com/contact/

Red Hat, Inc.: http://www.redhat.com/about/contact/

Mozilla Foundation, Inc.: http://www.mozilla.org/contact/

Schedule

Milestone	Item	Deps	Time	Who	Completed
M1	Initial Setup
1a	Choose validation Lab, approve costs, and sign NDA	all		all	Atlan
1d	Define Algorithms, Key Sizes and modes
M2	Complete NSS 3.12 FIPS dependant bugs
M3	Update documentation (numbers in parentheses refer to sections in FIPS documentation)
3a.	(1.0) Security policy, new algorithms	1d	2 wks	all
3b.	Generate annotated source tree (LXR -> HTML)	M2
3c.	(2.0) Finite State Machine	3b	3 wks
3d.	(3.0/4.0) Cryptographic Module Definition	3b	2 wks
3e.	(6.0) Software Security (rules-to-code map)	3b	2 wks
3f.	(8.0) Key Management Generate 20K random #'s		1 day
3g.	(9.0) Cryptographic Algs	3a	3 days
3h.	(10.0) Operational Test Plan		1 day
3i.	Document architectural changes between 3.2 and 3.11		5 days
M4	Send docs to testing lab
4a.	Security Policy		all
4b.	Finite State Machine	3c
4c.	Module Def. / rules-to-code	3d,3e
M5	Operational validation
5a.	Algorithm testing		1 month
5b.	Operational testing	3h	1 week
5c	set up machines for Lab to run operational tests on, provide Lab tech with access to machines (last time we both sent a box to the lab and set up a temporary account in the intranet for them)
M6	Internal QA of docs	M2-M5	1 week	all
M7	Communication between NSS team / Lab / NIST about status of validation / algorithm certificates	M1-5	3-6 mos	all